Saturday, December 12, 2015

Go Tide! ISIS Still A JV Team? My Two Favorite Sayings!


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I am finally getting into the spirit of the Holidays (See 1 below.) and don't you make fun of my Alabama Heritage - Go Bama - Go Crimson Tide!



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The Demwit Nazis and naysayers are at it again.  The same who attacked Newt and called him "The Grinch Who Stole Christmas," because he wanted us to live within our means, are now attacking Trump and calling him Hitler.

I keep Newt's "Contract With America" under the glass top on my desk  as a reminder of just how basic, common sense practical and bland it was but, at the time, he was demonized.

I submit for those who disagree with Trump's proposals they spend more time questioning their practicality, their cost and what impact it may have on our goal of living in peace and eliminating the scourge known and perpetrated as/by ISIS and their like.  This would not only make more sense but it would also add some credibility to their stance.  They could even agree with what he proposes and disagree with  his bombastic and crude method of the way he says what he does and they  might even suggest it undercuts his message.

They could even walk the extra mile and offer better alternatives.

When you cannot defend a position, attacking the messenger may bring comfort but it exposes you and the methods you employ for what they really are - specious at best.

I love humor,. I love satire.  I have learned to laugh at the dunce and sometimes I even have cause to laugh at myself. So Ho, Ho, Ho and a Merry Christmas and Happy, Healthy New Year to all.

Incidentally,do you think Obama  has changed his mind about ISIS being the JV Team? Have they reached varsity status?  If not, what else do they have to do to achieve such recognition?

 On another note, I understand the raw appeal of Trump.  As I have mentioned before, he says what is on his mind and that of others who remain silent because they have been  intimidated by  the Obama and PC crowd. No one likes to be called a racist.  One of my daughters even thinks I am one because of my memos.

 I am not a racist. I am a conservative and that means I am opposed to the way we treat the underclass.  I believe it is demeaning, has proven to be wrong headed and has cost a fortune without accomplishing much beyond creating more dependency,  not less. 

 Economic growth solidly rooted in fiscal responsibility, accomplished by entrepreneurs and individuals (yes, capitalists) and an educated work force are the answer to so many of our social problems. Bloated government bureaucracy and arrogant politicians serving narrow interest moneyed supporters are the biggest threat to America not climate.

 I do not think Trump is a racist either but I do believe his bombastic comments allows others to characterize him as such.

 I also do not understand the loyalty Demwits display for Hillarious other than they want to win at any cost, ethics be damned and their loyalty is misplaced.  That she has proven to be one of the worst Secretary's of State is a valid and provable comment and can be measured by most objective standards. Furthermore, she cannot deny her Siamese connection with Obama's foreign policy disasters, yet the press and media favor her because she is their chosen queen . They helped Obama both times and  therefore, must continue their influential clout at all cost,  so Hillarious it is.

This brings me to three candidates who are languishing and yet have proven records, two of which are outstanding. I doubt most people would get on a plane if the pilot had never flown but had proven to be a great steward.  JEB, Kasich and even Christie have piloted and have been re-elected because of their worthy performances and their solid  achievements are also measurable by any rational and objective standards.

Maybe in time, as the campaign moves to bigger states, they will rise in the polls but they will not do so because the press and media want the best for our nation. Trump sells and they have allowed him to run a no cost campaign accordingly so he is allowed to suck up all the oxygen and I take nothing away from his amazing come from nowhere campaign.

However, if this is how we go about selecting a the leader of the free world then I need to revisit my psychiatrist.

It would appear after 7 years of Obama, and the misery, fear, discord and insecurity he has caused and the connection Hillarious has with their joint and abysmal record,  voters would be more discerning. Maybe in the end they will be,.  However, if their current paranoia is any indication America's future will become increasingly uncertain  and that would be an unnecessary tragedy. Lamentably,  my two favorite sayings again come to mind: "The Enemy Is Us" and "When All Else Fails, Lower your Standards!"
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Beats the old flame thrower: http://www.asminternational.org/news/videos/-/journal_content/56/10192/20085491/VIDEO 
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Glick answers Kerry! (See 2 below.)
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How to win against ISIS. (See 3 below.)
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Now for some humor:

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=10153774391451661
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========================================================================1)I grew up with practical parents. A mother, God love her, who washed aluminum foil after she cooked in it, then reused it. She was the original recycle queen before they had a name for it. A father who was happier getting old shoes fixed than buying new ones.

Their marriage was good, their dreams focused. Their best friends lived barely a wave away.

I can see them now, Dad in trousers, tee shirt and a hat and Mom in a house dress, frying pan in one hand, and dishtowel in the other. It was the time for fixing things. A curtain rod, the kitchen radio, screen door, the oven door, the hem in a dress. Things we keep.

It was a way of life, and sometimes it made me crazy. All that re-fixing, eating, renewing, I wanted just once to be wasteful. Waste meant affluence. Throwing things away meant you knew there'd always be more.

But then my mother died, and on that clear summer's night, in the warmth of the hospital room, I was struck with the pain of learning that sometimes there isn't any more.

Sometimes, what we care about most gets all used up and goes away ... never to return. So ... While we have it ... it's best we love it ... And care for it ... And fix it when it's broken ... And heal it when it's sick.

This is true. For marriage ... And old cars ... And children with bad report cards ... And dogs with bad hips ... And aging parents ... And grandparents. We keep them because they are worth it, because we are worth it.
Some things we keep. Like a best friend that moved away or a classmate we grew up with.

There are just some things that make life important, like people we know who are special ... And so, we keep them close!
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2) Answering John Kerry
By Caroline Glick 
 On Saturday, US Secretary of State John Kerry gave a speech before the Brookings Institute’s Saban Forum. Kerry focused on the Palestinian conflict with Israel and sought to draw a distinction between the two-state policy model, which he supports, and the one-state policy model, which he rejects.
To justify his rejection of a policy based on Israeli sovereignty over areas beyond the 1949 armistice lines, Kerry raised a series of questions about what a one-state policy would look like.
I answered all of his questions, as well as many others, in great detail in my bookThe Israeli Solution: A One- State Plan for Peace in the Middle East. I will do so again here, albeit with the requisite brevity.
But before discussing the specific questions Kerry raised with regard to the one-state model, it is important to discuss the nature of the policies Kerry described in his speech.
Kerry argued Israel should deny civil and property rights to Jews beyond the 1949 armistice lines, and ignore the building and planning laws of both Israel and the military government in Judea and Samaria in order to allow unrestricted Arab construction in Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem.

Such steps, he argued, will advance the cause of peace because they will pave the way for an Israeli withdrawal from the vast majority of these areas. Such a withdrawal in turn will bring about the desired two-state solution.

Since the two-state solution is supported by the whole world, Kerry argued that once Israel withdraws from the areas, it will gain the support of the world, peace with its Arab neighbors as well as the Palestinians, and become more prosperous and happy than it is today. It will also secure its democracy.
On the other hand, Kerry argued, if Israel respects the civil and property rights of Jews and continues to enforce the law toward Arabs as well as Jews, and if it eventually applies its laws to any or all of Judea and Samaria, Israel will enter a state of perpetual war with the Palestinians and the wider Arab world. Israel will cease to be a democracy. Israel will be impoverished.
Israel will be isolated internationally even more than it is today.
If Kerry’s options were real options, then Israel would have a clear and easy choice, just as he argues it has.
But unfortunately, they aren’t real options. They are fantasies.
Today Israel has three options. As Kerry advocates, it can withdraw from Judea and Samaria and partition Jerusalem. But if it does so, there is no reason to believe that the outcome will be a Palestinian state, let alone peace.
Rather, it is far more likely that an Israeli withdrawal will lead to the establishment of a second independent Palestinian enclave that the Palestinians and the international community will insist is still under occupation, just as the Palestinians and the international community insist that Gaza remains under Israeli occupation 10 years after Israel vacated the Gaza Strip entirely.
Without Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, Israel will become a strategic basket case in an increasingly chaotic region. It will invite aggression from the Palestinians and from the east that it will be hard pressed to defend against.
Just as Israel is condemned for every action it has taken to defend against Palestinian aggression from Gaza, so it will be condemned for the actions it will be forced to take to defend itself from Palestinian aggression in Judea, Samaria, Jerusalem and beyond.
In other words, the so-called “two-state solution” is a recipe for war and expanded international isolation for the Jewish state.
The second option for Israel is to maintain the status quo. Today, Israel shares governing power in Judea and Samaria with the PLO. Sometimes the PLO cooperates with Israeli security forces, and sometimes it cooperates with terrorist groups.
The PLO rejects Israel’s right to exist. It uses every available platform to undermine Israel’s legitimacy and wage economic and political war against the Jewish state.
The advantage of the status quo is that under it, Israel has security control over Judea and Samaria. Consequently, it is able to prevent Judea and Samaria and Jerusalem from becoming strategically indistinguishable from Gaza, where Hamas is now openly collaborating with Islamic State forces in Sinai.
Israel’s third option is to apply its laws over all or parts of Judea and Samaria. The first benefit of this option is that it maintains Israel’s ability to defend itself against security threats emanating from the Palestinians and from the east.
Beyond that, under Israeli law, the civil rights of Palestinians and Jews in Judea and Samaria will be vastly improved. Israel’s liberal legal code is superior to both the military code governing the Jews and the Palestinian Authority’s law of the jackboot which governs the Palestinians.
Whereas the status quo invites and engenders politicization of Israel’s military commanders who serve as the governing authorities of the areas, the third option would end the politicization of the IDF. Generals would take a backseat to elected leaders and government ministries. Police would be responsible for law enforcement. Rather than deploy regular and reserve units to dispel rioters, police, who are better trained for such events, would be judiciously deployed in areas where they are most needed. The IDF’s operations would be limited to counterterrorism.
None of Israel’s actual three options will necessarily enhance its international standing. This is the case because, as we have seen, Israel’s international standing has little to do with anything Israel does.
But then again, by exhibiting strength, and forcefully asserting its rights, Israel may find itself winning the respect of some foreign governments that currently view it is weak and open to blackmail.
This brings us to Kerry’s questions about a one-state model.
Kerry asked, “How does Israel possibly maintain its character as a Jewish and democratic state when from the river to the sea there would not even be a Jewish majority?” The answer is easily. Israel will retain its strong Jewish majority, and its commitment to democracy, after it applies its laws to Judea and Samaria.
Kerry asked, “Would millions of Palestinians be given the basic rights of Israeli citizens including the right to vote, or would they be relegated to a permanent underclass?” The answer is yes, they would be given the basic rights of Israeli citizens, including the right to vote, and no, they would not be relegated to a permanent underclass.
Kerry asked, “Would the Israelis and Palestinians living in such close quarters have segregated roads and transportation systems with different laws applying in the Palestinian enclaves?” The answer is, no.
Kerry asked, “Would anyone really believe they were being treated equally?” The answer is that, as we have seen repeatedly, no matter what Israel does, and no matter what the Palestinians do, people like Kerry will always claim that Israel is mistreating the Palestinians.

Kerry asked, “What would the international response be to that, my friends, or to a decision by Israel to unilaterally annex large portions of the West Bank?” The answer, again, is that the international response to such a move would be about the same as the international response to the continuation of the status quo or to an Israel withdrawal. To wit, the response will be hostile to Israel.
Kerry asked, “How could Israel ever have true peace with its neighbors, as the Arab Peace Initiative promises and as every Arab leader I have met with in the last year reinforces to me as recently as in the last month that they are prepared to do?” The answer is that Israel can have true peace with the Arab world when the Arab world accepts the legitimacy and permanence of the Jewish state.
Kerry asked, “How will [Arab states make peace]… if there is no chance for a two-state solution?” The answer is that they will make peace when they decide they want peace and they rid their societies of Jew hatred.
Kerry asked, “How will the Arab street in today’s world let… [the two-state solution] go by?” The answer is that the Arab street doesn’t believe in the “two-state solution.” The Arab street wants the dissolution of Israel.
Finally, Kerry asked, “And wouldn’t Israel risk being in perpetual conflict with millions of Palestinian living in the middle of a state?” The answer is that Israel is at risk of perpetual conflict with the Palestinians and the Arab world as a whole for as long as the Arabs hate Jews. The millions of Palestinians living within Israel’s borders constitute a far smaller strategic danger to Israel than the millions of Jew-hating Arabs, who have terrorist armies, perched on its international borders.
At the outset of his remarks, Kerry explained that as far as US Middle East policy is concerned, “Our goal, our strategy is to help ensure that the builders and the healers throughout the region have the chance that they need to accomplish their tasks.”
Sadly, this is neither a goal nor a strategy. It is the sort of platitude you’re likely to find inside a Chinese fortune cookie.
If Kerry is interested in an actual strategy, he can fork out 20 bucks and buy my book.
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3)





How to Beat Islamic State

To win against the jihadists, isolate them, undercut their appeal to Muslims and avoid a ‘clash of civilizations’


An undated Islamic State propaganda photo shows masked jihadists in Syria. ENLARGE
An undated Islamic State propaganda photo shows masked jihadists in Syria. PHOTO: DABIQ/PLANET PIX/ZUMA PRESS
By
Islam is a religion, and like any other faith, it is internally diverse. Islamism, by contrast, is the desire to impose a single version of Islam on an entire society. Islamism is not Islam, but it is an offshoot of Islam. It is Muslim theocracy.
In much the same way, jihad is a traditional Muslim idea connoting struggle—sometimes a personal spiritual struggle, sometimes a struggle against an external enemy. Jihadism, however, is something else entirely: It is the doctrine of using force to spread Islamism.
President Barack Obama and many liberal-minded commentators have been hesitant to call this Islamist ideology by its proper name. They seem to fear that both Muslim communities and the religiously intolerant will hear the word “Islam” and simply assume that all Muslims are being held responsible for the excesses of the jihadist few.
I call this the Voldemort effect, after the villain in J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books. Many well-meaning people in Ms. Rowling’s fictional world are so petrified of Voldemort’s evil that they do two things: They refuse to call Voldemort by name, instead referring to “He Who Must Not Be Named,” and they deny that he exists in the first place. Such dread only increases public hysteria, thus magnifying the appeal of Voldemort’s power.
The same hysteria about Islamism is unfolding before our eyes. But no strategy intended to defeat Islamism can succeed if Islamism itself and its violent expression in jihadism are not first named, isolated and understood. It is as disingenuous to argue that Islamic State is entirely divorced from Islam as it is to assert that it is synonymous with Islam. Islamic State does indeed have something to do with Islam—not nothing, not everything, but something. That something is the way in which all Islamists justify their arguments using Islamic scripture and seek to recruit from Muslims.
Islamic State’s leaders insist that the U.S. and the rest of the West are waging a global war against all Islam and Muslims. This is obvious nonsense, but by a combination of provocation and self-fulfilling prophecy, Islamic State is doing everything possible to make it a reality—helped along, alas, by Donald Trump’s call this week “for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.” Islamic State’s goal is to leave Sunni Muslims—in Europe, America and the Middle East—with no refuge except the terrorist group’s own self-declared caliphate in the lawless regions of Syria and Iraq.The urgency of making these distinctions should be apparent to everyone. The attacks seem to be coming in swift succession now: Istanbul, Sinai, Beirut, Paris, San Bernardino, London. What is the strategy behind this Islamic State-inspired violence? Jihadists of all bents seek to create discord, pitting Muslims against non-Muslims in the West and Sunni Muslims against Shiite Muslims in the East. The theocratic ideology of Islamism thrives on division, polarization and claims of Muslim victimhood.

I bear some personal responsibility for this effort to eliminate the gray zone, to promote the idea that Muslims have no home in the West. As a young Muslim growing up in the U.K., I spent more than a decade as one of the leaders of a global Islamist group that advocated the return of a caliphate, though not through terrorism. My activities eventually led me to Egypt, where at 24 I was jailed as a political prisoner and sentenced to five years in Mazra Tora prison.
Only in jail, after Amnesty International adopted my case, did I dedicate myself to rereading, reviewing and reappraising my every thought. As I deradicalized myself over the next five years, I eventually concluded that Islam, my faith, was being exploited for a totalitarian political project and must be reclaimed from the theocrats. I have spent the past eight years doing just that through a counterextremism organization that I co-founded.
This struggle can be won, but it will not be easy. Over the past few years, in survey after survey, attitudes in the U.K. have reflected a worrisome trend. A quarter of British Muslims sympathized with the Charlie Hebdo shootings in Paris, according to a February poll by ComRes for the BBC. A 2008 YouGov poll found that a third of Muslim students believe that killing for religion can be justified, and 40% want the introduction of Shariah as law in the U.K. Another poll, conducted in 2007 by Populus, reported that 36% of young British Muslims thought apostates should be “punished by death.”
The aim of counterinsurgency strategy is to deny the enemy any propaganda victories that can further fuel its recruitment.ENLARGE
The aim of counterinsurgency strategy is to deny the enemy any propaganda victories that can further fuel its recruitment. PHOTO: REPORTERS/ZUMA PRESS
It should come as no surprise that, from this milieu, up to 1,000 British Muslims have joined Islamic State, which is more than have joined the British Army reserves.
The actual strength of Islamic State’s army probably lies somewhere between the CIA’s estimate of about 32,000 and Kurdish estimates of some 200,000. According to the Soufan Group, a New York-based private intelligence firm, the number of foreigners streaming into Syria and Iraq to join Islamic State and other Islamist groups has doubled over the past 18 months, despite the West’s best efforts, and may now be as high as 31,000.
The latest polling by Pew of 11 countries with large Muslim populations found widespread disdain for Islamic State—but also troubling levels of support. Only 28% in Pakistan disapproved of the group, and 62% offered no opinion. In Nigeria, 14% of respondents had a favorable view of Islamic State; in Malaysia and Senegal, it was 11%; in Turkey, it was 8%; in the Palestinian territories, it was 6%. There is, in short, nothing like majority support for Islamic State among the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims, but such numbers are still worrisome.
After the Paris attacks, Pope Francis declared that we are in the midst of a piecemeal World War III. It is more accurate to say that we face a global jihadist insurgency. Islamic State is the latest incarnation of this insurgency, but it has been brewing for decades, spurred on by Islamist social movements that have filled the void left by the shortcomings of all too many Muslim-majority governments. Characterizing Islamic State as part of an insurgency is important because, as Vietnam taught us the hard way, defeating an insurgency is different from winning a conventional war.
The most critical part of such a strategy must be messaging. In fighting Islamic State, we must avoid the language that it uses to promote its worldview and, at the same time, offer compelling alternative narratives. Only in this way can we deny today’s Islamists and jihadists their ability to appeal to Muslim audiences.Counterinsurgency rests on the assumption that the enemy has significant support in the communities from which it recruits. The aim of counterinsurgency strategy is to deny the enemy any propaganda victories that can further fuel its recruitment. Insurgents must be isolated from their targeted host communities. This requires a combination of psychological, physical and economic warfare, all with the aim of undermining the insurgents’ ideological, operational and financial capabilities.
In this effort, Muslims who deny that Islamist extremism is a real problem are as counterproductive as Mr. Trump and his populist fear-mongering. Both serve to increase the religious polarization and mistrust that the extremists relish. Islamic State is out to provoke a “clash of civilizations.” We should not oblige them.
What is at stake in these failures and evasions? Absent an accurate language that explains the difference between Islamist ideologues and the majority of non-Islamist Muslims, anxious non-Muslims in the West can be more easily alarmed by blaring media coverage and attention-seeking politicians. Some will simply assume that the problem is Islam itself and all Muslims per se, which helps to explain the rise of xenophobic politics in both Europe and the U.S.
As for Muslim communities themselves, if they hold that Islamism has “nothing to do with Islam,” then there is nothing to discuss, which is plainly not the case. This position undermines brave Islamic reform theologians such as Britain’s Usama Hasan, Pakistan’s Javed Ahmad Ghamidi and America’s Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na’im, who are urgently trying to lay the foundations of a theology that rejects Islamism and promotes freedom of speech and gender rights—thereby undermining the insurgents’ message.
This denialist position also betrays the many besieged ex-Muslim voices—such as the Pakistani-Canadian writer Ali A. Rizvi—who struggle for the right to be fully accepted by their own Muslim communities. These reformers all need a vocabulary that distinguishes Islam from the politicized distortion of it peddled by Islamists and jihadists.
Just as one doesn’t need to be black to care about the struggle against racism and one needn’t be gay to worry about homophobia, one needn’t be Muslim to speak out against Muslim theocrats. Considering their founding history, Americans are especially well placed to speak about why theocracies are never good for humanity. They also can help Europeans deal with the challenges of creating new, post-migration national identities.
Many of my fellow Muslims have resisted the call to refute Islamism head-on. They ask why they should apologize for something with which they have little or nothing to do. But just as we Muslims expect solidarity from others against anti-Muslim bigotry, such as Mr. Trump’s outlandish remarks, we have a duty to reciprocate this solidarity by speaking out against the Islamists.
What should a counterinsurgency strategy mean for the actual conduct of foreign policy? President George W. Bush may have rushed headlong into the jihadist snare by invading and occupying Iraq, but Mr. Obama and the international community are now sleepwalking toward another precipice in Syria. Though it is true that our intervention in Syria will be used by Islamic State to galvanize more recruits, our failure to intervene has been used by them as evidence that the world has forsaken Syrians, leaving them to face Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s barrel bombs alone.
My own journey into radical groups began not when the world intervened in a foreign conflict but when it failed to intervene in the Bosnian genocide. I opposed the U.S. invasion of Iraq, but passivity can be just as dangerous as invasion. So long as Islamists control the narrative among angry young Muslims, both our action and our inaction can be used to radicalize them.ENLARGE 
The world is facing a global jihadist insurgency, working to advance a well-thought-out operational strategy, fed by Islamist ideological convictions that remain appealing to some Muslims. After Paris and San Bernardino, the Obama administration’s policy toward Islamic State is unraveling. From likening Islamic State to “a jayvee team” last January to saying one day before the Paris attacks that Islamic State had been “contained,” Mr. Obama has remained one step behind the group’s predictable rise.
A key part of our counterinsurgency response should involve getting the Iraqi and Syrian Kurds off the sidelines. Yes, this will be uncomfortable for our allies in Turkey, and it will trouble Iraq’s rulers. But the Kurds have proven themselves over and over again to be the only effective fighting force on the ground against Islamic State.
If that means a Kurdish state, so be it. Outside of the continuing experiment in Tunisia in North Africa, a Kurdish state could become the only democratic, secular Muslim-majority state in the Middle East. It could become a political and religious beacon for the region. Our diplomacy until now has inexcusably neglected the possibilities this presents.
Airstrikes against Islamic State must also be supported by an international ground force, a few thousand in number, and fronted by Sunni Arabs. These should be backed by an international squad of special forces and support staff, all of whom are focused on dislodging Islamic State from its strongholds of Mosul and Raqqa. As for the question of Mr. Assad, as part of a deal with Russia and Iran, the Syrian regime should be kept intact, but Mr. Assad must go.
Such actions may weaken Islamic State’s operational capacity but will not defeat its ideological appeal. The Islamist extremism that first inspired al Qaeda and then Islamic State will continue to inspire others. Islamic State was not alone in radicalizing the estimated 6,000 Europeans who have traveled to join them. That many recruits couldn’t have emerged from a vacuum. Islamic State propaganda is good, but not that good.
In fact, decades of Islamist propaganda had already primed these young Muslims to yearn for a theocracy. The same YouGov survey I cited above found that 33% of young British Muslims expressed a desire to see the resurrection of a world-wide caliphate. Islamic State has simply plucked the low-hanging fruit seeded long ago by other Islamist groups operating across Europe.
Reversing this campaign will require decades of work by Muslims and non-Muslims alike, but the endgame must be to render the ideology of Islamism intellectually and socially obsolete.
Mr. Nawaz is the founding chairman of Quilliam, a London-based counterextremism organization, and the author of “Radical: My Journey Out of Islamist Extremism.”
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